Does Bush owe the Religious Right? (from CNN.com)

[Dulcinea]

For people of faith, the political landscape has never been entirely comfortable terrain.

Politics, they have learned from experience, is a process in which principles get ground up into compromises?or ignored until the next campaign rolls around.

This time religious conservatives are counting on things to be different: churchgoers mobilized as never before and helped re-elect a President they see as one of their own. Now they expect him to deliver for them.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/31/bush.religiousright.reut/index.html

[rkc3]

1. We can only hope more repubs like Todd-Whitman become outraged

at the hijacking of their party.

[MNTrueBlue]

2. Bush's 'political capital' debts

It's kind of frightening how much the Fearless Leader owes to the Religious Right. Especially for someone who's a non-Christian. I've seen a number of articles over the past few months about the sometimes uneasy alliance of conservative Christians and economic (somewhat Liberatarian) conservatives. The Religious Right has expectations for Bush, but even if he doesn't follow up on them they'll probably support him. If he does pursue the things they want him to though, he does run a risk of alienating the more traditional moderates and possibly causing a split in the party... if any of them have any backbone left, and I'm not sure they do. In any case, it's not a fun prospect. The Religious Right is similar to Islamic Fundamentalism is so many scary ways it's not even funny. Even the name given them... the Religious Right... as if there's only one religion, most of them are Fundamentalist Christians. I don't have any problem with Christianity, Christians or any other religions, I just have a problem when other people are trying to force their religious beliefs on me and make them law. I saw a great bumper sticker once: "Freedom is the distance between Church and State."